McGarrah Technical Blog

Diagnosing a broken microwave

My relatively new microwave just stopped heating things for no apparent reason one morning. We bought it a couple years back (about 3 years ago), so I was not happy as I expect these to work awhile with several working for ten (10) plus years. We picked up a new one from the local white box retailer as we wanted a replacement quickly. But my wife while digging around on Youtube found Microwave works but wont heat - Cheap and easy fix which was exactly what we experienced.

That video said it was likely a fuse or diode which are both cheap enough that they are worth an attempt at fixing. That will give me an extra microwave for the kids to use upstairs if I can fix it and save some landfill space.

Fuse Diode

HP ProCurve Switch Java WebUI

“Don’t bury the lede”

A working HP ProCurve Java WebUI screenshot to showing that I got it working.

ProCurve WebUI

My earlier post HP ProCurve 2800 initial setup discussed an initial configuration of a network switch and mentioned in passing that I got the ProCurve Java WebUI working in a relatively safe manner. Here is how I put that together on a modern machine running Windows 10 Professional 64-bit.

WARNING: It should go without saying that you should not use the FireFox Web Browser from January 2017 that we are setting up here for the very old Java Web App supported on hardware released in 2004 and EOL in 2013 on the public internet. You will be hacked without a doubt in seconds. These are completely unpatched versions of two very very very old pieces of software. You have been duly warned.

ISC2 Cybersecurity Certification

ISC2 Cybersecurity Certificate (CC) offered for free through the end of 2024 is a nice opportunity to add some skills for people interested in Information Security. The offer includes a full set of online self-paced training materials along with a voucher for taking the certification. No professional experience is required to take and receive this certification. You do have to register with ISC2 for their yearly membership, called an Annual Maintenance Fee (AMF) at $50 USD, but only after you pass the certification. That is a reasonable price to join a professional organization and to get tracked into a future path for the professional certification like the SSCP, CCSP, and CISSP.

Powerline Networking for the Homelabs

I inherited, from a stack of old junk hardware, two Netgear Powerline 500 Nano XAVB5101 plugs. I thought I would try it out for a quick network connection between two floors in my new house using the existing power cabling.

Powerline NIC

Wow did I learn a lesson in a combination of networking and electrical power the hard way… with a repeatedly blown breaker.

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